[schizophrenicroom]

NEW YORK ROCK: AN UPDATE

"''Sonic Youth,'' the first album from the quartet of that name, is also the first release on Neutral records, a new label co-founded by the guitarist and composer Glenn Branca. The group includes one of the guitarists from the group that performs Mr. Branca's compositions, and instrumentally Sonic Youth sometimes recalls Mr. Branca's carefully formal, numbingly loud overlays of massed electric guitars. The music's beat, and the even strokes the guitarists favor, are controlled and relentless, especially on the generally dark and desperate-sounding side one. The second side of ''Sonic Youth'' offers some brighter moments, but the concern with order and clarity is still evident. On most of the selections, the vocals, when there are any, sound like afterthoughts, but ''I Dreamed/I Dream,'' apparently the complaint of a woman whose boyfriend is a junkie, is a starkly affecting song, and by far the strongest piece on the record."

neat.

eta: from 1982/3 also.

Rock: 3 bands on a single bill.

Sonic Youth gets most of its noise from up to three rapidly strummed electric guitars, which compete with shouted vocals by Thurston Moore or Kim Gordon. Mr. Moore borrows his stage moves - crouching into fetal position, writhing on his back in the audience - from Iggy Pop and PIL's John Lydon, but the vocals are a sideshow to the raging guitars.

Art Rock: 6 groups play (and holy shit, the FALL played too. they get called "next best" after teh yoof)

Most of the bands on Wednesday sounded derivative. The best was one closely associated with Mr. Branca, Sonic Youth, and even it sounded derivative of his music, although still impassioned and inventive in its extensions of that inspiration.